How to Crush your Rotations

Study on your own.

Students often ask me questions about things they don’t know one day (perfectly fine), only to ask me the same exact question the next day (NOT fine!). Do you realize how irritating this is?! It tells me you don’t care enough to spend a few seconds googling the answer. Even worse than looking bad is that not knowing something puts your patients at risk. And what’s the first rule of medicine, students? That’s right, DO NO HARM!!!

Don’t lie.

You’ll often get asked if you did this, that, or the other. If you didn’t do it, then don’t make up an answer. It makes you look dumb because you’re almost guaranteed to get it wrong since you’ll be guessing and, well, medicine is hard. It’s also a surefire way to lose the trust of your resident or attending.

Act interested.

If you act like you don’t care, then no one will care about what you learn. Even if you 100% know that you don’t want to go into Specialty B because you’ve already chosen Specialty A, you should still say that you’re undecided when you get asked about it (unless you’re rotating in the specialty you want, of course).

Take initiative.

Show up ready to work on day one. Your classroom days are over. You learn by seeing and doing on rotations, not by being spoon-fed information in a lecture hall. Don’t wait to be told what to do. If you don’t know something you can read about it later (see the first point above). Residents and attendings appreciate students whose hands don’t need to be held.